Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Best Call of Cthulhu Supplement Ever

I just started going through a complete ten-volume set of encyclopedias from 1922 that I scored on Ebay. This has to be, without exception, the single most valuable purchase of Mythos-related reference material I've ever made. In one handy package you get a complete atlas of the world of the 1920's, a guidebook to the latest scientific and technological developments, hundreds of pictures and engravings, and a downright amazing prop that looks awesome on your game room bookshelf.

How much did it cost? Less than the Call of Cthulhu RPG rules and a single supplement . Encyclopedia sets from the 20's and 30's regularly go for $30-$70 on Ebay, which is a pittance for the amount of carefully researched period information you're getting. Even better, letting players pull a volume off the shelf and look up relevant articles is incredibly immersive.

I was lucky enough to find "Winston's Cumulative Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia", a post-bound set that allowed subscribers to update entries just by swapping in new pages for the old. Once I find a decent match for the paper I'll be able to add entries specifically customized for the adventure at hand whenever I want. The possibilities that opens up are endless.

7 comments:

  1. @ Anonymous

    I should have some up over the weekend. If the page swapping is easy I was going to bang out a quick tutorial.

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  2. Bravo :-)! I did the same thing with a complete 1929 edition of Britannica that I scored at a local library sale for $20. I got it for a GURPS Cliffhangers campaign with strong Lovecraftian themes (mostly running from CoC supplements) and got many years of use out of it.

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  3. wow, that is quite the score! I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures, just to see how accurate the CoC source book was

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  4. Clever idea! Sounds like a perfect prop... Or a perfect addition to anyone with any sort of vintage ephemera collection (just pick your decade). What a great way to provide context!

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